The EU's temporary steel safeguard expired at end-June 2026 and a permanent TRQ took its place — duty-free volume nearly halved to about 18.35 Mt, the out-of-quota duty doubled to 50%, and a first-ever "melt and pour" origin rule. Using the official allocations, this piece breaks the quota down category by category and country by country: HRC alone claims about 5.2 million tonnes, Türkiye takes the largest share, Taiwan, China is squeezed hardest — and CBAM stacks a second barrier on top.

[Turkey] The Turkish domestic rebar market remained deeply subdued this week. The mid-week holiday further paralyzed already anemic downstream demand, with most market participants opting to extend their absence through the weekend, bringing merchant trading to a virtual standstill. Consequently, Turkish domestic rebar prices ticked down to 560–565 USD/tonne EXW (excluding VAT). Crucially, scorching summer weather over the last month has significantly driven up industrial energy costs across Turkey. Compounded by stubbornly low capacity utilization rates and high financing costs, operations have become unprofitable for most local EAF mills. As a result, the room for further price cuts by mills remains limited in the short term, bolstering their stance to support prices. On the export front, Turkish rebar export prices held steady at 565 USD/tonne FOB. As Turkey's country-specific quota has been exhausted, exporters are actively tapping into the remaining global safeguard allocation in Europe. In summary, caught between halted holiday trading and rigid production costs, Turkish long steel prices are expected to remain range-bound with a weak bias, though the downside remains structurally limited in the near term.

Tightening supply policy in Indonesia, new import quotas and carbon costs in the EU, and tariff walls in the US pushed benchmark stainless steel prices higher across nearly every major market in the first half of 2026 — even as real demand stayed weak everywhere, turning global trade increasingly into a fight over market access rather than supply and demand.

The EU's revised steel safeguards took effect July 1, cutting annual duty-free import quotas to 18.35 million tonnes. South Korea's country-specific quota was reduced by 19.7% to 2.07 million tonnes. To offset the impact, Seoul plans to stimulate domestic steel demand by strengthening cooperation with shipbuilding, defense and renewable energy sectors, which is expected to generate over 510,000 tonnes of additional steel demand. Korea also intends to continue EU negotiations under the FTA framework while expanding into new export markets to reduce reliance on Europe. Under the new quota system, five countries including Turkey, India, Japan, South Korea and Ukraine secured around 2.74 million tonnes/year of duty-free allocations in category 1A (HRC), representing 53% of the total quota. The overall HRC quota was cut by 59%, with Turkey's quota falling about 60% while Japan's rose roughly 24%.

Five major Japanese steel associations issued a joint statement criticizing the EU's new steel import regime effective July 1, which has significantly curtailed market access for Japanese steel. The new system roughly halves total TRQs from the previous safeguard regime and raises the out-of-quota duty to 50%, reducing Japan's country-specific quota to approximately 800,000t — well below its 2022-2024 average annual EU exports of around 1.5 million tonnes. The associations also criticized the EU's September 2025 final anti-dumping duties on Japanese hot-rolled flat steel, arguing that the investigation failed to adequately account for the trade-restrictive impact of the July 2024 safeguard tightening, and expressed concern over a separate ongoing AD investigation into cold-rolled flat steel. Describing the measures as inconsistent with the Japan-EU EPA and potentially in breach of WTO rules, the associations urged the Japanese government to pursue early resolution through available dispute settlement mechanisms.

New country-by-country quotas reward South Korea's balanced access and Indonesia's hot-rolled position, while Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Turkey face a tighter squeeze once melt-and-pour disclosure rules bite from October 1.

On 1 July 2026, the EU replaced the steel safeguard measures implemented since 2018 with a significantly stricter import quota system—this is not merely a continuation of the old policy, but a complete reconstruction of its underlying logic: the core objective has upgraded from "preventing trade diversion" to "targeted defense against high carbon and excess capacity."

The European Commission established a new steel trade regime with a total annual tariff quota volume of 18.35 million metric tons (mt) distributed across 26 product categories, with half allocated exclusively to free trade agreement (FTA) partners. Category 1A (hot-rolled sheets and strips) represents nearly one-third of the total volume at roughly 5.2 million mt, a significant reduction from 7.7 million mt in the previous quota year. Turkey received the largest Category 1A country-specific quota (CSQ) at 642,295 mt, followed by India (597,274 mt) and Japan (551,539 mt), while quotas for cold-rolled coil (Category 4A) and metallic coated sheets were sharply slashed to 1.5 million mt and 1.6 million mt, respectively. The steep reduction in volume allowances, particularly in flat products, highlights a protectionist pivot designed to shield European producers from import influxes amidst structurally weak domestic demand.

According to the quota annex of EU Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1457, annual country-specific allocations for key stainless steel product categories are as follows: Category 8 (hot-rolled sheets/strips): Indonesia 35,843t, India 26,019t, Chinese Taiwan 19,984t, Korea 20,735t, Türkiye 13,727t, China 9,515t; Category 9 (cold-rolled sheets/strips): Korea 101,884t, Türkiye 69,038t, Chinese Taiwan 52,985t, South Africa 52,607t, Vietnam 43,853t, China 40,431t, India 38,054t; Category 14 (stainless bars and light sections): India 92,557t, Switzerland 10,786t, China 3,585t; Category 15 (stainless wire rod): India 18,772t, Korea 5,212t, Chinese Taiwan 4,305t, Japan 2,400t, China 1,374t; Category 22 (seamless stainless tubes): India 15,329t, Ukraine 6,524t, Korea 2,392t, China 1,073t. Total annual quotas across all 26 product categories amount to 18,345,922 tonnes, with a 50% out-of-quota duty. Quotas are split into MFN and FTA parts, administered on a first-come, first-served basis, and remain in force through December 31, 2026.

The European Commission published Regulation (EU) 2026/1384, establishing the EU steel trade regime that takes effect 1 July 2026 and replaces the safeguard measures expiring 30 June. The new framework sets annual tariff-rate quotas of 18.3 million mt with a 50% out-of-quota duty, and adds a melt-and-pour origin requirement to curb circumvention. Crucially, the country-specific quota allocations are not yet set: they will come via a separate implementing act that has not been published, even as talks with several FTA partners reportedly continue. The gap leaves importers and supply chains uncertain about how the quota system will function from day one, with stainless mills among those watching the final country splits.